Welcome to Common By Nature, a blog I began in 2011 to share my love of wildlife in North East England. These days, it’s still about nature but I’ve definitely let plants take the spotlight.

Here you’ll find trip reports, sightings, notes on identification, and the occasional botanical side quest as I inevitably fall down yet another natural history rabbit hole.


Current Fascinations

By my own admission, I am prone to falling down rabbit holes from time to time. Typically, this involves deep-diving into a particular subject and learning as much as possible before, inevitably, another topic comes along to take its place. Regardless, below you’ll find my current areas of interest…


Botanical Bits

Botany is my main interest, and whether it’s ferns, snowdrops, grasses, ancient woodland plants, or even humble pavement weeds, I try to spend as much time as possible seeking out our wild plants.

North East Botany

Here you’ll find musings on plant identification, trip reports, sightings from walks and courses and just about anything else relating to botany in North East England.

Urban Flora of Newcastle and North Tyneside

The Urban Flora of Newcastle and North Tyneside is the first comprehensive account of the wild plants growing across the Newcastle and North Tyneside conurbation, one of the largest in the UK.

Based on six years of fieldwork, the book documents more than 1,120 native and naturalised plants -around a third of Britain’s entire flora.

Meet James

Born and raised in North East England, James is a botanist, general naturalist and biological recorder with a passion for sharing the joys of North East nature with others.

He currently works as Senior Naturalist for the Natural History Society of Northumbria (NHSN) and volunteers as a vice-county recorder for the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI), both of which allow him to spend ample time outdoors leading trips, courses, surveys and guided walks.

Contact

Please use the adjacent form to get in touch if you have any queries about plants, places or content mentioned on this blog. Enquiries about talks, training opportunities or media are also most welcome.

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